The Rheinfels Castle is a castle built on top of a hill behind the town of Sankt Goar. As you may expect from places like these, the Rheinfels Castle overlooks the Rhine. I can’t blame them for doing this since the scenery is just so pretty. Apart from being able to admire the scenery from above, the position of the Rheinfels Castle gives it a very good vantage point to see any possible enemies which may be approaching from the river. As a result, Rheinfels Castle became a very important fortress, the largest in fact, in this part of the Rhine. One claim to fame the castle has is that it is the largest castle overlooking the Rhine.

For something which is supposedly the largest fortress and castle overlooking the Rhine, the Rheinfels Castle didn’t seem to be that large. Much of it is in ruins now and apparently, it is now only a faction of it’s former size. While large parts of the castle are in ruins, there are parts that are in active use – as a hotel and restaurant. The rest of the castle seems to be an open air museum. You get to see a part of the castle ruins without even going in and it does seem to be large and well preserved. I can see that the hotel is just beside the entrance to the hotel and I see workers unloading stuff presumably for the hotel. It seems that people do stay here for the holidays even in winter.

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